


Hope to Raise the Sun

by sunlightsmarrow



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Genre: First Kiss, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, declaration of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 07:57:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13095774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlightsmarrow/pseuds/sunlightsmarrow
Summary: Happens during and immediately after The Last Jedi. Some of Poe's reaction to the happenings with Vice Admiral Holdo, and Finn sorting a few things.





	Hope to Raise the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> First work back from a year and a half hiatus from the fandom. Hope it's not too rusty. :)

When the ship split in two, Poe Dameron’s heart skipped a beat. He swallowed, trying to keep his throat from seizing up. Vice Admiral Holdo had saved them all, but Finn was still on that First Order ship. She may have ripped straight through him, casting his flesh into oblivion...and Rose’s, too. The light of the blast reflected in Poe’s eyes, all inferno and finality, chaos in a reprieve. As debris flew past the ship, flaming and flying at thousands of miles per hour, Poe felt numb. There was gratefulness toward Holdo for sacrificing herself, fear for the First Order inevitably coming to snuff them out, and the desire to simply not think about the fate of the bravest man he’d ever met. 

So Poe forged on. He tended to Leia and did his best to lead where he could and remember to back off when Leia insisted. He tried to cauterize Finn from his mind, to silence his fears and maintain hope. But there was only a shred of it. He heard their betrayal and the First Order come to take them down, surely to be executed. 

But in a quiet moment, Leia found him in a hallway, taking a breather in an alcove with his palms pressed to his eyes, chest heaving with the effort of drawing breath. He felt the anxiety pooling low in his stomach and rocketing upward into his chest like bolts from a blaster blowing tiny holes in his nerves.

“Is there anything I can do, Captain?” Leia’s raspy voice was soft in the seconds of silence Poe had found; not peace, no, but silence, which for now would suffice. Poe ignored the title and looked down into Leia’s eyes. She saw how swollen his eyes were and how tiny brooks of red danced among pure white deltas and lapped at the banks of his space-dark irises. He worried a crimson lip with the effort of holding himself together. Leia took his hands, tracing over protruding veins and palms soft and strong as leather. 

 

“He’s okay, Poe. I know he is.” The lump in his throat bobbed and she saw the tears come. She knew his tears of worry. He didn’t cry often, in fact. Not when a mission failed or many people died, or when he lost his first droid. Indeed, the last time she saw him cry was after he had escaped those few years ago. He did not cry for himself nor Finn; the tears came for his boyhood friend, Ben, who he finally realized and accepted as being lost to the dark ways of the Force. “I can still feel him.” She put her hand on his chest, right over his heart. He felt the warmth of her through his clothes and felt something else. 

~~~

All screeching metal and terror, the TIE fighter slid into the old Rebel base and Poe was ready for blood. He crouched, blaster at the ready to do whatever he could to keep the Resistance alive. He did not shoot first, but his trigger finger gladly pulled one shot after another, again and again until four hands shot into the air, two lighter than his own and two darker. Poe threw his arm up and shouted to hold fire. As soon as he saw Finn’s face, waves of relief and joy crashed over him. BB-8 came rolling as fast as it could across the cold concrete to greet him, and Poe gave it the rubdown of its life. It started tittering away about its adventure, but Poe’s eyes and ears were locked on Finn and his radiant smile, the flex of his arms as he hugged and shook hands, and how very much alive he was.

Outside, the thunder of AT-ATs and blaster strike threatened that vitality. They had work to do.

So when Finn risked his life again, despite Poe imploring him to be rational and not to be the hero, he forced himself to pull away and to leave his best friend to the cannon. He knew Finn had taken off his comm, but it didn’t stop him from taking to his religion and praying to the Maker for Finn’s safe passage. 

Then Rose sacrificed herself for him. Rose, the tech, the brave girl whose sister’s blood was on his hands. He saw how she looked at him and he knew how she felt. Many people looked at Finn that way; they were a “big fan.” They looked at him with huge eyes and wanting expressions, with reddened lips and open stances. It burned a fire in his heart that made him feel possessive over something that could never be owned. Finn was subject to no one: he never could be and Poe wouldn’t dare. He had heard other pilots talk about “taking” women, or having “their” girl. That type of possession disinterested Poe, and while he longed for someone to be looking out for him as much as he wanted to look out for them, he could never see himself forcing someone to do so. 

Finn had dragged her back and he was covered in her blood. Her body was limp in his arms and remained so as the medics tended to her. Poe saw Rose’s chest move up and down and was relieved that not another Resistance fighter had been lost to what was simply the personification of death and suffering. Finn had gotten her help, and now he was focused once more. He was a perfect soldier. But when he tore his eyes away from Rose and saw Poe, something in Finn’s expression changed. He had a determination and a shame about him that made Poe want to reach out and touch him and just ground him. 

“Buddy,” Poe said as Finn looked back at Rose again. Poe’s body moved without his mind’s agency to his friend’s side, short legs crossing wide distances, understanding where they were needed without conscious thought. Finn was close now, their ribs brushing one another’s through their jackets. When he realized that Finn was pulling away (not out of discomfort or disgust), he realized that his arm dropped from his friend’s waist. Confusion lit up Finn’s eyes and suddenly, they brightened as they caught a glimpse of something behind Poe. The pilot turned, and Luke Skywalker strode by, an expression on his face that dared anyone to interrupt him or stand in his way. Poe straightened. Rey, the scavenger he had heard so much about, must have made it. For once in much too long, Poe felt real hope. 

~~~

Finally aboard the _Falcon_ , Finn and Poe got a chance to rest. They checked each other for bad bruises, both stripping to the waist before climbing onto their bunks. Finn preferred the top bunk and Poe gently settled his older body onto the bottom one. Poe ran his hand down his own scarred body. He watched bruises bloom under his skin, already purple and red against the pale light in the room.

“I don’t feel anything….really special for Rose,” said Finn suddenly. His voice was soft and Poe saw his legs swing over the edge of the bunk. They swung nervously as the springs in the bed creaked. “I mean, she’s amazing and loyal and smart. I just don’t….feel anything.” Finn was referring to Poe’s question earlier about how he and Rose had met. The tech was still recuperating in the sick bay. “But have you...Poe? Are you still awake?”

He pilot had grown quiet listening to Finn’s voice bounce around on the metal walls. Their harsh gray made the space feel colder. “No, don’t worry about it,” he said. “Whatever happens on that front happens; just as long as you’re happy and safe.”

“Poe--” The swinging stilled. Finn shifted and climbed down from the bunk. He settled into a crouch next to Poe. The pilot turned on his side, his dark eyes scanning the soft face of the bravest, most heroic man he knew. “Poe I--” The older man watched the ex-Trooper struggle to find the words to express himself. “This wasn’t a First Order thing, you know. No one...no one kissed each other. And I certainly didn’t feel--”

 

“Buddy, if you don’t feel that way toward anyone, that’s okay. No one should be forcing you to--”

“I’m not finished, Poe.”

Color krept into Poe’s cheeks. Finn continued: “I didn’t feel anything in the First Order. Not really...not until I met you.”

Realization dawned on Poe like hoping for the sun after a long night. He remained silent, not daring to interrupt the precious words that Finn was about to say.

“Poe,” his tongue darted out to wet his lips and his hand tentatively reached out to wrap his fingers around the hand Poe had rested on his chest. “The feelings I have for you aren’t like anything I’ve ever experienced before.” He drew Poe’s hand to his lips. As he was about to release him, Poe slid his hand free and cradled Finn’s jaw. As their eyes met, Finn offered a slow smile, an invitation.

As their lips met, the sun broke the barriers of darkness, and Poe believed. The rays of peace danced across calm waters and silent space with a friendly planet nearby. The breeze was warm and smelled of those little periwinkle flowers on Endor. Or at least that’s what it felt like as Finn’s hands skimmed the traces of violence on Poe’s body, as his warm fingers brushed through downy chest hair, and as they first experienced each other’s redolences.

Thus the _Falcon_ tore through the galaxy: with an empty bed and recuperating refugees, with a tangle of tongues and hands exploring the galaxy of a lover’s body, and with hope finally ringing in the sun’s existence.


End file.
